Word: religion
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...sniffing trio. With her chubby cheeks, quiet voice and large glasses, Fatima Zohra al Salfi makes an unlikely heroine, and she's clearly nervous about a few of the sinister-looking passengers on the bus. What al Salfi has going for her is the same thing the jihadis have: religion. She is a murshida, a Muslim "guide" or preacher, and as such a rarity in the Islamic world, in which religious instruction is usually the preserve of men. The government-sponsored religious training that al Salfi and other female preachers have undergone is unique in Islam. But Moroccan officials...
...comic-book series based on characters that each personify one of the 99 qualities that the Koran attributes to God, met early resistance in places like Saudi Arabia. Local authorities worried that the series might mock Islam. But after Mutawa guaranteed that he would remain respectful of religion and won backing from a major Islamic bank, the series took off around the Gulf. Initially given away for free with Arabic versions of Marvel comics (the license for which Mutawa owns in the region), The 99 is now a stand-alone success, with some 500,000 copies given away and sold...
While the 99 represent Allah's myriad attributes - everything from wisdom to faithfulness - there is no overt mention of religion in the stories. "When you read through the books, there is no mention of Islam, Allah or the Koran," says Mutawa. "I used an Islamic archetype, but the actual stories don't show any Islam, because they are based on values that we all share." Even Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, he says, "are based on religious archetypes. Like the prophets from the Bible, they are all orphans. Superman left his parents on the planet Krypton, and Batman sees...
...kind of release in the U.S., and his only impact on Hollywood movies was that he made a star of a young Egyptian named Omar Sharif. But at film festivals, Chahine was for decades the prime, often the only, representative of an entire continent, Africa, and a world religion, Islam--though his family was Christian and his heritage Lebanese and Greek. He was both a nationalist and an internationalist, both an art-house auteur and a director of movies that were popular from Morocco to Indonesia...
...foreign films. Few of his 40-plus features achieved any kind of release here, and you'll go nuts trying to find his stuff on DVD. But at film festivals, he was for decades the prime, often the only, representative of an entire continent, Africa, and a world religion, Islam - this though his family was Christian and his ancestors came from Greece and Lebanon. He was born in Alexandria and grew up during a chaotic time for the planet and for Egypt: World War II, when Rommel's Army marched toward his hometown, and the postwar invention of the state...